Two Years, One Lesson.

It was two summers ago I began seeing a counselor by happenstance. I continued seeing him because he noticed and started to uproot a vast and complex series of issues I struggled to keep the lid on since my pubescent years. Well, maybe not struggled, because I thought I was doing a pretty good job. Point is, turns out I’m pretty messed up. Like 9/10 on every scale messed up. Over the last couple of years I’ve explored endless caverns of this depression with all its ins and outs.

Almost immediately upon beginning this process of counseling, the pain that I previously wouldn’t dare acknowledge exploded to the surface like a geyser determined to decimate everything in it’s path. And it did. And I was in it’s path.

It’s been a long two years.

Despite the many lasting burns and collateral damage suffered by those closest to me, I’m still here. I often wasn’t sure I would be. It seems the heat has dissipated a bit and the pressure relieved. Now the water simmers, and I never really know how long until or what might cause a rolling boil to chaotically erupt, but there’s at least intermittent hope for normalcy. That’s what two years of talking and 120mg of Serotonin affords for me.

That’s where I am now. Mostly. It’s not too bad (minus all the weight gain!). When I’m not suffocating on boiling water, everything seems rather peachy. I’ll take it!

It can be very difficult to convey with accuracy exactly what it feels like to always feel everything while in some sense feeling absolutely nothing. It’s just.. bad. It’s like drowning without dying while doing all the days duties. A blistering water that burns inside and out while feebly functioning, forcing forward a faux fortitude fabricating a facade for friends and family. It’s something like that. A couple years of speaking and sobbing and yelling and crying and praying and punching while committed to counseling affords one the words to write a few sentences, granting the privilege to forge a least a little bridge between oneself and those close to oneself.

One Lesson

In the end, what I mean to say is I’m learning to talk about what’s going on inside this damned dragons den. I’ve learned that suppression for repression does nothing but fuel the fire of regression into that decaying depression. Also, I rhyme a lot. I drink coffee by the… cup……sss

A few weeks ago I saw this counselor for an atypical session with another person present. The topics, ironically, were largely centered around the idea of creating safe environments for talking and feeling and relating. Except the flabbergasting thing is almost the entire conversation I felt attacked. Betrayed by another pseudo-father figure, a gut-wrenching stab in the back. I felt blamed. I felt insulted. I felt compared. I felt belittled. I felt pressed. I felt embarrassed. Maybe he lost his temper? Maybe it was a tactic? Perhaps he would rather retract it? Either way, I felt some things. Concluding our session I stormed out and… well, I felt some things. On a positive note, I can never unlearn the importance of creating safe environments. I guess he did a good job! SUCCESSSS

For a few weeks I’ve been trying to process my emotions about this and also trying to think through how I would want to approach him and seek resolution. That changed three days ago. As his retirement approaches, he has begun shredding files on his clients. And then it hit me.

I’m a file to be shred. I’m not a friend. I’m not a brother. I’m a file. A shred-able file. A few papers in a manila folder with semi-senile scribbles here and there. Maybe I’m wrong to be so reductionistic. It was a very useful two years. But after this I think it’s time to say au revior to all that. One can only look inwards for so long before their eyes don’t work anymore. Here’s to looking up and out instead, putting to use everything I’ve learned rather than frantically trying to learn even more. It took two years to get me to a point where things are mostly simmering and I’m glad for that. But I’m ready to move on.